Chiang Mai to Chiang Rai

24 January 2014

We signed up for a tour - Chiang Mai to Chiang Rai, Chiang Rai being the northernmost large city in Thailand.  Our tour was in a van, with a British couple, a German man, six young Chinese people, and us.  (One woman who, when Richard got out to let her in, climbed into his seat and refused to move, and started yelling in Chinese - it was quite a drama!  He's so tall, he couldn't easily sit anywhere else - someone finally moved so this Chinese drama princess could sit up front, and then we were able to leave.)

Anyway......

 
We headed north through the hills, winding our way in the early morning haze.  It was beautiful, but not easy to photograph.  We ended up at some hot springs, which are very hot.  As in 80 C - that's almost boiling!  Interesting the way it shoots up in a perpetual geyser.  And the little shops had beautiful sterling silver figurines, maybe for shrines and temples but they'd be beautiful in a large house.  I took photos and had to explain to the sales staff that no, I wasn't buying, I was just admiring.

(We brought snacks - the Koala March cookies are little cookies filled with chocolate, with cute koalas stamped on the front.)

We stopped at the White Temple.  This is a relatively new temple, designed and built by a famous Thai artist, who decided to make the temple totally white.  (Although it also is inlaid with mirror tiles.)  Inside the temple, rather than having paintings and sculpture showing the life of the Buddha, the artwork all portrays modern history and modern culture:  Superman, the September 11 catastrophe, and such.

It was a bizarre place.  The architecture was Thai gone to extremes - I don't know how else to describe it.  There were the usual Thai embellishments but the sweeps turned into sharply exaggerated points, almost like daggers pointing into the sky.  Imagine a Disney movie about an evil Thai empress of ice - that's kind of what the White Temple looked like.

But then the bathroom was all in gold - not the interior, but the exterior - gold paint, gold mirror tile, the whole thing looking like it was made of molten real gold.  Except I ended up in the traditional Thai bathroom section, meaning you take off your shoes and put on their plastic sandals, and the toilet is the foot-stand-squat-on-the-floor kind of toilet.  With an overflowing basin of water to scoop and flush the toilet.  So that the entire stall was soaking wet.  Uh, yeah.  Gold exterior, and flooded squatter on the inside.

Just, weird.

Turns out there was a Western toilet section that I didn't find.  It wasn't much better, apparently, although not as wet.

So with all that gold, our next stop was the Golden Triangle - the point where the three countries of Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar (formerly Burma) meet along the Mekong River.  This area was originally the point where opium dealers would meet on the islands in the river and buy/sell/trade opium, using gold as the currency.  Hence the name Golden Triangle.

So we boarded a boat and took a cruise up the river to the islands, and almost to the Myanmar border.  Couldn't cross the border, because a passport and visa are required, but we cruised up to the edge of the area.

And of course there's a huge gold coloured Buddha along the way, right near the Thai border.  The three countries all assisted financially in putting up this giant Buddha.

Then we turned and headed south along the Mekong.  This is the seventh longest river is Asia, and the twelfth longest river in the world, running some 2,700 miles (or 4,350+ kilometers) from the Tibetan plateau to Vietnam, where it empties into the ocean.  It goes through China as well as Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, connecting all these countries for shipping.  HUGE river!  It's also home to giant catfish, the kind that weigh some 200 kg (about 450 lbs) - although the best time to catch the giant catfish is in April, when the level of the river is lowest.

We were able to disembark in Laos, at a little village that basically is all one big market for tourists who come on these cruises.  We walked around, stretched our legs, looked at a few things.  There was a casino not too far away, but not enough time to go check it out.

Then back on our boat, and back south to Thailand. 

Although I enjoyed watching these Buddhist acolytes climbing into the small boat, and then helping their older monk teacher in.

We stopped in the town of Maesai (meh-SIGH), the northernmost town in Thailand, right up against the Myanmar border.  This town features items made in China and brought down river, so a lot of people shop here for goods that can't be found elsewhere in Thailand.

We found these little arcades off the main road that were just packed with shoppers, food carts, and of course the occasional motorscooter coming through despite the fact that it was mostly pedestrians.

One stand had stuffed animals - so I cuddled with a tiger.  There's a place called Tiger Kingdom where people can pay to pose with a tiger, and the tigers are trained to interact with people.  But tigers are nocturnal, and not exactly happy to cuddle with people - so while I'd love to hold a live baby tiger, well, I would rather let them run free without me, and I snuggled the toy tiger instead.

 




Our last stop was at a "traditional" village of hill tribe people.  Except it was a group of people from various hill tribes, who wouldn't necessarily live in the same village.  It was really more a group of people of various ethnic groups who live there and have small shops to sell their traditional crafts, while wearing traditional clothing, and it's all set up for tourists.  Kind of sad, really.  Most of the hill tribes are people who came from other countries, where they were not accepted because they were ethnically different from the majority of people.  So these various groups of people are essentially exiles living in Thailand, and holding on to their traditional culture.  And being exploited by tourists.  As I said, sad.  But I bought a few little items to try and support the economy, and I took a photo of this young woman who was in her traditional dress.  (And I would LOVE to have a jacket like that, but alas, they only seem to come in small sizes because Thai people are fairly small, and the hill tribe people are REALLY small - I mean, some of the older women don't even come up to my shoulder.)

Anyway, it was really an interesting trip, and worth doing.  We never would have spent a day visiting two borders and cruising a river otherwise.  

Okay, next up - flying to Bangkok.  Tomorrow, I promise!

Chiang Mai, Old and New

23 January 2014 - Part 1

Chiang Mai is a lovely city, dating back to 1296 CE (or so).  It's a very interesting city, and absolutely worth exploring.

The old part of Chiang Mai was originally surrounded by walls and moats.  On the maps of the area, you can see the square that marks this part of the city.  Parts of the wall are in varying states of disrepair, even to the point of ruin, but other parts have been repaired and look much as they did when first built over 700 years ago.

And of course there are beautiful gates, fountains in the wide moats, koi swimming around in the water, and lovely parks along the walls.  Including the ubiquitous food carts that seem to constitute Thai fast food.
 

The roads mostly circumscribe the old city, although there are old narrow roads that wind through old Chiang Mai.  But they aren't always wide enough for two cars to pass, the area is congested with pedestrians and vendors, and somehow it's faster to just drive on the modern boulevards that surround the old city.  

So with all of these streets going over or past the moats, plus occasional rivers or canals or whatever, there are bridges everywhere.  And the bridges need guardians to keep out demons, or evil spirits, or bad karma, or what have you.  Each bridge seems to have its own animal - there's the bridge of the foo lions, then the bridge of the elephants, then maybe the bridge of the deer.  Or rabbits.  (Good guardians, aren't they?)  Each bridge is unique, and it really makes for interesting walking.

Chiang Mai is located in the hills of northern Thailand, so nights are cold and days are mild right now in the winter, although even the days are cool compared to Bangkok, which is tropical.  (Summer in both locales is fairly hot and humid.)  Everyone in Bangkok told us to be prepared for the cold, and most evenings find us wearing sweaters.

With the hills, the climate, the forests, the rivers, this area became home to many temples and holy places.  In some ways, Chiang Mai is the spiritual center of Thailand, or at least it seems that way to us travellers.  And the area has a sense of quiet and peace that is unlike other parts of Thailand, almost similar to Ubud in Bali.  Almost.  But not quite.  Some places, like Ubud, have an almost tangible spirituality that you really can feel.  Sfat (Safed), in Israel, is like that. You can feel the wisdom of sages and holy people emanating in the air.  Ubud is like that.  Chiang Mai is similar, but maybe not as strong.  Or not as tangible.  But definitely there.

Anyway, so both the old and new cities are full of temples and shrines, with all kinds of interesting guardians at the gates, or little architectural details, or lovely statues of Buddhas.  And of course monks, young and old - learned teachers and acolytes, dressed in colors from yellow to ochre to tangerine.  Walking, riding buses, even riding trains.  (The train waiting room has a special area for monks roped off.  And the airport has a Buddhist praying room.)

Check out the photo with the close-up of the shrine figurines - we have an entire group of dancing people!  Love it!!!!

Even the street signs reflect the architecture of the town.

Of course, all this holiness and history isn't everything Chiang Mai is known for - this is the home of the Night Bazaar.  Shopping continues during the day - there are stores with windows full of strands of semi-precious gems and beads and pearls.  Shops full of silk and cashmere.  Other shops full of antique fabrics and traditional clothing.  Or jewelry stores full of 98% silver jewelry sold by weight.  (Normal sterling is 92.5% silver.)  Traditional Thai arts and crafts such as handmade silk umbrellas. 

This place is shopping heaven.  Despite my best efforts, I haven't abstained.

So, I have one more day of Chiang Mai for the blog, and then our flight back to Bangkok.  We're here, things are fine, it's 11 PM, and you'll just have to wait until tomorrow.